Conclusions and Future Work - XP

Conclusions

The project did work as intended. We were able to successfully analyze a musical beat and create a cam to actuate the movements necessary to replicate said beat. However, there were a few things we learned from during the course of the project.

The primary issue we faced was our choice of motor. The inherent speed of our motor comes at the cost of maximum torque. Either selecting a new motor that is geared down or creating a mechanism for gearing down the output of the motor would create greater torque on our cam. This would fix the issue of our cam becoming stuck due to lack of significant force to dislodge it. A simple fix for this would be to use a larger mounting board so the cam can be places farther away from the follower. This would allow for larger fillet radii and therefore fewer sharp increases in cam radius, which is what the follower regularly failed to overcome.

In addition, it would allow us to tighten up various components and ignore certain friction costs associated with a very rigid mounting of links.

Lastly, a different gear ratio will allow for slower spinning of the cam and a beat that is more auditorily recognizable.

Future Work

There are several tasks which we would undertake in order to improve the design of this prototype.

Implement a new motor/gearing system to improve torque at the cost of rotation speed for the cam.
Increase stability of the stand for mounting board.
Stronger connection for various device pin joints.
Improve sound processing methods to better account for a wider variety and complexity of music.